[expletive] Ryan. They're raising money to combat the sickening amount of NRA money that has been buying the GOP for 50 years running. [expletive] him.

But Ryan is correct that it's a stunt and these bills won't pass because they don't have the votes, not because a vote is blocked. And Popeye is correct that the actual proposal is bad.

I guess it's nice that the Democrats now feel that gun control proposals are a political winner.

I don't disagree, but hoooo man is it hypocritical of him to wag his finger about making money off of the lives that were lost in Orlando. He should be ashamed.

Ryan can't recognize what is shameful any more.

Sure SOME of the sit-in dems don't care about advancing gun control issue (whether it's these current bills, or future ones) other than capitalizing off it, or for saving their political hide. But I'm not sure about ALL of them though. Tammy Duckworth. John Lewis. Gabby Giffords (albeit, former politician). -To name a few. Though TBH I don't know much about many of the politicians.

The gun lobby has clout that is in disproportion (vastly perhaps) to the electorate. There needs to be some viable organized political opposition to the NRA. And if politicians finally are starting to recognize this, and realizing it might help them politically, then good.

It's ridiculously hard to pass legislation, raise money, or levy taxes on or for a population that hasn't been directly affected by these tragedies, especially if it might pose an inconvenience (stricter gun legislation). These incidents raise public consciousness for a few days, maybe a week, then it's business as usual. True in politics and true in charitable giving for cancer, heart disease, ALS, Alzheimer's, etc. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending upon your POV) there are enough people who are directly affected to make noise and raise funds. It's similar to local NIMBY causes. You would think Gabby Giffords would resonate with congress in an "it could happen to you" sense, but I guess not.

Yep. All they care about is keeping their cushy job. I puke every time I hear one of those [expletive] referred to as working in "public service". I think everyone would enter "public service" to have their salary and benefit package.

While my cynical tendency is to agree- Consider some of the politicians are pretty safe from being ousted (gerrymandered districts again). Some are also old (Lewis) and can hardly be worried about keeping their jobs. The openly lesbian senator from.WI-what is her motive in this deal? And Gabby Giffords.

The idea that we could slaughter enough terrorists to scare today's 10-year-old Muslim kids into not joining ISIS or whatever springs up after ISIS is preposterous....ISIS deploys leaderless resistance, there is no "you kill this guy and the whole organization crumbles."

Right - its all a cycle of vengeance. Every drone strike leaves most a village committed to the destruction of the West and US in particular.

MMike - the only way to do what you advocate is to go full Roman on them: kill them all, raze the cities, plow salt into the fields and leave it a wasteland.

And you're not going to get everyone to agree on that. China and Russia and Iran are not going to sit idly by and watch the Marines do that. They are happy to watch us burn our resources and time playing whack-a-mole. You don't remember Afghanistan in the 80's? We were completely happy to watch the USSR destroy itself there.

I understand your frustration and your desire to 'do something'. But in the mutually-assured-destruction world we live in, unilateral decisions to annihilate a culture have no possibility of success.

Ok....let's just ignore it and hope it goes away

Even better: Let's make it worse.

its gonna get worse....i assure you of that.....i just hope when it does its your hometown that gets hit and not mine